Severing ties with the poisonous NUS is long overdue

Full marks to Michelle Donelan, the minister for universities, who has announced that the government is severing all ties with the National Union of Students (NUS).

In recent years, the NUS has become a disgrace, infested with levels of anti-Israel obsessiveness that would make your eyes water.

One story that stands out in my mind involved a scheduled performance by the Corbynite rapper Lowkey at the NUS conference in Liverpool in March. As a window into the performer and hard-left activist’s worldview, consider the lyrics of his song ‘Long Live Palestine’: ‘You say you know about the Zionist lobby. But you put money in their pocket when you’re buying their coffee. Talking about revolution, sitting in Starbucks.’ That’s the sort of chap we’re talking about.

Unsurprisingly, he has been a guest on Iran’s state-owned news network Press TV, on a programme hosted by the disgraced former MP Chris Williamson. Lowkey is a key figure in the radical Palestine Action group, which stages protests at properties used by Israeli-linked defence firms.